Line #21 PlayingWith/InspectorLestrade


1	'''Basic Trope''': A detective -- often a member of an official police force -- who is lacking in skills of observation, usually to make them appropriate foils for an unofficial investigator.
2	* '''Straight''': Police officer Bob lacks the observational acuity and deductive reasoning skills possessed by Alice, an AmateurSleuth, to the degree that Alice often proves helpful in assisting in his investigations, and Bob simultaneously is able to arrest the criminals whom Alice uncovers.
3	* '''Exaggerated''': Police officer Bob is [[TheDitz so incompetent]] that he can barely function as a police officer, and is utterly reliant on Alice's skills in order to solve even the simplest of cases.
4	* '''Downplayed''': Police officer Bob relies on Alice's skills in this case but it is [[OffscreenMomentOfAwesome implied]] that he is usually very competent.
5	* '''Justified''':
6	** Bob reached his position in the police force owing to [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections internal]] [[{{Nepotism}} politics]], rather than deductive skill.
7	** Bob is a reasonably intelligent and observant police officer, but Alice is a genius savant with observational powers that dwarf most others, including Bob.
8	* '''Inverted''': Bob is a competent police officer who is persistently tailed by Alice, an incompetent AmateurSleuth whom he must help out of numerous scrapes.
9	* '''Subverted''': Bob appears to be an incompetent, but in fact he uses ObfuscatingStupidity and is a lot savvier than he appears.
10	* '''Doubly Subverted''': Bob likes people to think that he uses ObfuscatingStupidity; in fact, he's just that incompetent.
11	* '''Parodied''': Bob is utterly [[FailedASpotCheck incapable of seeing even the simplest and most obvious of clues]], even when someone is explicitly pointing them out to him.
12	* '''Zig-Zagged''':
13	** Bob likes people to think he uses ObfuscatingStupidity, but in fact, he is that stupid ... except for [[GeniusDitz a few specialized areas]] in which he is a genius ... but Alice is ''still'' even more knowledgeable than he in those, so it's moot.
14	** Alternately, Bob can solve most standard crimes on his own but turns to Alice for help when he's confronted with the really weird cases.
15	* '''Averted''': Bob is a reasonably competent, savvy, and observant police officer.
16	* '''Enforced''': "We want our detective to be free from the constraints that operating as part of a police force places on their agents, but at the same time being someone that they'd reasonably and credibly allow to be involved in the case despite being unofficial. We'd better make the police detectives less effective to compensate."
17	* '''Lampshaded''': "Sometimes, Inspector, it's a real mystery to me how you ever solve a crime by yourself."
18	* '''Invoked''': AmateurSleuth Alice intentionally locates the dullest-witted police officer she can find to make her own skills more impressive in comparison.
19	* '''Exploited''': There are laws requiring only registered police officers to work on any given case, so Charlie, a RulesLawyer of a criminal, leaves a trail of clues only Alice can solve ... and when Bob arrests him, he offers the [[ArmorPiercingQuestion simple question]] of whether Bob did all the work.
20	* '''Defied''': "I'm not one of these slow-witted police officers you see in mystery novels, and I think you'll find not many cops are, either."
21	* '''Discussed''': "If we had cops like them around, crime in this city would be completely out of control."
22	* '''Conversed''': "How come the cops in these stories are always complete dimwits?"
23	* '''Deconstructed''':
24	** Bob's incompetence is indicative of a wide-spread paralysis, disarray, and rot that exists within the police force, and is a symptom of wider issues of [[DirtyCop corruption]], [[BadCopIncompetentCop incompetence, and even malice]] which have resulted in several [[MiscarriageOfJustice miscarriages of justice]] and [[KarmaHoudini criminals being allowed to escape justice]], which in turn contribute to increasing social decay. In this situation, the public must turn to unofficial investigators in order to secure justice.
25	** Bob's incompetence gets him fired from his job and replaced with the far more competent Claire.
26	* '''Reconstructed''':
27	** The police force has cleaned house to address the worst of such problems, but Bob is either just competent enough at his job to retain it or has otherwise hung on; he is among the last of a dying and unmourned breed.
28	** Bob is a reasonably competent and intelligent detective; however, the crimes he faces are beyond even his abilities, while Alice is a super-genius. Bob can still get started on the parts of the case that don't require Alice's levels of genius to perform like the paperwork to speed things along so that Alice can focus her energy on the difficult parts.
29	* '''Played for Laughs''': Bob is the good-natured comic relief, whose bungling is a source of constant amusement to both the characters and the audience.
30	* '''Played for Drama''': Bob is exactly aware of how unintelligent he is and how Alice dwarfs his intelligence and skills, and resents it with a passion. As such, he obstructs Alice as much as possible out of spite, seriously damaging the progress of the case in the process.
31	* '''Implied''': Bob's whole case was offscreen. When he and Alice come back with the criminal Carol, he says, "And it's all thanks to Alice. ...NotHyperbole."
32	----
33	Back to InspectorLestrade, sir, and remember: ''Your badge is not a coaster.''
34	----
35	%%Optional items, added after Conversed, at your discretion:

Context PlayingWith / InspectorLestrade